Just Ask Alice

Editors’ Note: Alice is vacationing this week and we are republishing one of her earlier columns.

DEAR ALICE: One of the things I like about the gas business coming to Northeast Pennsylvania is that our restaurants are now serving all sorts of new food to accommodate the southern-style tastes of the gas workers. Not long ago I was in a local restaurant where they were serving things like grits, black-eyed peas and pinto beans. Do you know of any other new foods that have arrived thanks to the gas boom?

—MENU MANIA, MILAN

DEAR ME: Betsy Wickhammer’s Quick Lunch here at Jester Hill has a new burger on the menu. It’s called the Freakin’ Frack Burger. Betsy won’t say what’s in it, but she promises that it will give you gas.

—ALICE

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DEAR ALICE: Why do you use the drawing of that ugly old lady at the top of your column? Don’t you think she should at least be sort of pretty?

—WONDERING IN POTTERVILLE

DEAR WO: Ouch! It’s bad enough that I have to look at that face every morning in the mirror, but you really didn’t have to remind me that it’s mine. I got a mudpack once and looked great for a couple days, then the mud fell off.

—ALICE

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DEAR ALICE: I heard on the news that Pakistan is going to stop cooperating with the United States because of our raid that ended in the death of Osama bin Laden. What will this mean for the U.S.?

—WORRIED IN WYSOX

DEAR WOR: Don’t worry. What are they going to do? Stop sending us heroin?

—ALICE

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DEAR ALICE: Don’t you think it’s immoral how much money the oil companies are making on a gallon of gasoline?

—OVER-TAXED, OVERTON

DEAR OV: Oil companies make a four percent profit on each gallon of gasoline; government taxes total 15 percent. Now that’s immoral.

—ALICE

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DEAR ALICE: Do you know how I can measure how much time it takes from when someone slips on a banana peel until they hit the floor?

—SAYRE STUDENT

DEAR SA: You’ll need a stopwatch that measures time in bananoseconds.

—ALICE

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CONFIDENTIAL TO TROUBLED IN TOWANDA: When you married him, he was Mr. “Right,” but, of course, it took you a while to learn that his first name is “Always.”